What is the difference between ignorance and stupidity? Perhaps the answer can be found by examining the habit of smoking. Up until the sixties, smokers were ignorant, because the direct link between smoking and lung cancer, and the indirect link between smoking and a dozen other diseases, was not yet established. However, half a century has elapsed since then, and every day, new information about the lethal effects of smoking comes to light and becomes known to smokers. Smokers can also clearly see government-issued warnings printed on cigarette packets that say "smoking kills". This means that smokers can no longer pretend to be ignorant, and can thus now be accused of stupidity, as they continue to pursue a habit that they know will eventually kill them. Personally, I am not accusing smokers of stupidity today. I have never been a smoker, but I know that addiction is to blame- addiction that sometimes goes beyond smoking to drugs, alcohol and so forth-, and that addicts often cannot unshackle themselves from their lethal habits. For this reason, I try only to stay away from it. Ignorance can be cured with education; however, stupidity is forever. And while an ignorant person may read, hear, and follow matters of knowledge of which he may gain a little, there is no cure – be it pills, injections or ‘patches',- that stupid people can take to become normal. I once stumbled upon something called “the Encyclopedia of Stupidity", but I did not try to buy it out of concern I might get infected. I then found out that there is also an Encyclopedia of Ignorance, which I did not need because I'm from the Arab world, and ignorance in our country is in the air and the water. Some people are so stupid that they remind me of a Coca-Cola bottle: Empty from the neck up. If such people had a blood test, they would spend the previous night studying, and in the morning, they would not be able to wear their shoes without an instructions manual. Speaking of which, a blonde once put a note on her shoes saying: Please insert your toes first. While there are many jokes about the stupidity of blondes, I do not believe that blondes are indeed stupid, since I never managed to trick any blondes yet. The other problem is that the majority of them are blondes not by birth, but by means of chemicals. Hence, a man was asked once whether his wife was a blonde or a brunette, and he said that he didn't know, because when he left her in the morning, she was on her way to the beauty parlor. Perhaps the problem of blondes is that jokes about them are often written by men who have failed to woo them much too often. At any rate, I read about a blonde who once went to the doctor, and said that every part of her body hurt. She put her finger on her foot and yelled: Ouch, it hurts, then her shoulder and then also screamed in pain. She then told the doctor: Doctor, look, even when I put my finger on my hair it hurts. The doctor said: Your finger is broken. There was a quote attributed to Einstein which was doubtful to me. He allegedly said, “The two most common elements in the universe are Hydrogen and stupidity”. But I did not find this quote in any reference, which confirmed my doubts regarding its origin, even as it sounds like something Einstein would have indeed said. However, I found another quote which the man behind the theory of relativity did say, which is that “the definition of stupidity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”. In this vein, the inventor Thomas Edison cannot be accused of stupidity. In trying to reach the desired outcome, he would change what he was doing. And it seems he was as stubborn as he was smart, as he tried a thousand ways to reach the result he desired but failed. When his assistants finally reproached him, he said: We now know a thousand ways not to get what we want. Every Arab must no doubt be a modern-day Edison, because we all know, nay tried, a thousand ways not to reach any goal except more ignorance, to the extent that I now feel that the purpose of Arabs in this life is to cure inferiority complexes of people from other countries. I know I am being harsh. However, I am being as such while realizing that I'm part of the people I am being harsh with. I worked in journalism because I could not be an engineer or a doctor, only to discover that there are doctors and engineers who know nothing else other than their jobs. By comparison, if I stand next to these doctors and engineers, I would be the equivalent of a nuclear physicist. But perhaps the most sinister part about this whole subject is that an Arab ignoramus may not be aware of the extent of his ignorance. For this reason, we see him opining on every aspect of life and religion, and often insists on his opinions in subjects of which he is most ignorant. However, I do not want to go on about this, because the phrase “unknown unknowns” was coined by Donald Rumsfeld before me, and while I may be ignorant, I am not as ignorant as him. Finally, I leave the reader with a kid who failed his exam. When his father asked him why, he said: Perhaps it is genetic. When he saw his father getting angry, he quickly said: Look at the bright side; at least I did not cheat in the exam. Now this kid is ignorant, but he is not stupid. [email protected]
